


in circles, somewhere else

by theblythe



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cinnamon roll Newt, Dark, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hogwarts, Insecurity, Master of Death Harry Potter, Partnership, Pining!Newt, Rebirth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-06 23:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8772775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theblythe/pseuds/theblythe
Summary: It's 1897, Harriet Jamie Potter is reborn again. And so, a fated bond occurs between the irrevocably kind and gentle Newt Scamander, and the beautiful, cunning enigma that is Genevieve Greengrass, who has eyes of slytherin green. (A story of circles, and everything that goes around it.)





	1. Prologue

(in circles, somewhere else)  
 _Prologue_.

 

She first sees him standing on a tip of a thick branch of a Skallywrickle tree in the local park down Amity lane- arms stretched, small hands grappling the thick copse, gaze insistently peering.

Back of his head holds light brown hair, tuffs and tuffs of it. His body, pudgy, a little on the small side- screams at her with words of young, small, hardly tough at all. He looks familiar. She thinks she might have met him before- maybe, _possibly,_ not at all a vague conception to her.

She might have, and maybe she couldn't have met him because it wasn't the right era, or century, or life, yet.

Maybe they had met when he was fifty and she was five. Or when she was dying and he was living. Or when he was already in love and middle-aged and she was barely even a month old. Or when she was Harriet Jamie Potter and he was, she reckons, already dead. In a way, she thought to herself, those were all times of wrong. It were all fleeting lives of Harriet- created in a way the two of them were invalid to be together. It felt all wrong because in all those lives she has not felt what she is feeling now.

In this life, she can feel an imaginary string moving from her heart, connected to something far from the void, though tugging her somewhere in a frantic moment- pulling, pulling, and pulling, until (maybe, possibly, in the right time, age, and future) she can be numb in the heart from its constant pulls. Her heart beats a sudden race when her eyes shot up to up. It's beating because she's found him, and the ache of her heart? It's loosened and limp on the ground. He's this close.

But, but, but. No. No, not yet. Not the right time, yet.

No, Harry, she thinks as she looks up at the six-year-old boy reaching for a unperturbed pet half-Kneazle, who reminds her of a friend's cat many, many centuries ago.

Six. Six-years-old.

Her age. Just a child. It's too early.

She approaches the magical tree, then reminds herself that, in this life, she's just six and pretty and a little bit juvenile. She's no where near thirty with a high-flying career, nor eighty, in solitude on her own death bed.

She's young. She's uncontainable. She's wildfire. She is Genevieve Alexandria Greengrass- supposedly brash, willful, intently posh- she's all green and glamorous like a major human sacrifice to Salazar Slytherin himself.

She takes in a big puff and yells with her hands on her small waist. "Hey, you! Boy up in the tree! You might fall from there, you know?"

The boy faces her direction like whiplash, head extending down- maybe to mark who had called him. Eyes alarmed, freckles, pink lips, eyes of blue, green, blue. She has unfeasible vision. His hand stays still on the side of the trunk, balancing on his center of gravity.

He peers down at her. She blinks at him. The half-Kneazle sneezes.

"I'm retrieving Repina." He tells her, head bowed, eyes down. He looks like he's expecting her to leave. Nervous. Eyes-flicking. Nervous. "Don't worry, it's really harmful. Kneazles are quite smart. Very calm. Should be easy to get Repina."

"Repina? The half-Kneazle?" Vee cocks her head, standing her ground. He vigorously nods his head, then turns back to try to coax Repina, the half-Kneazle, to come down the tree and leap into his arms. She knows because he motions carefully with his six-year-old arms. In the span of a minute, Vee grows impatient, so she tries again.

"Your name?" She insists, and feels the tug of something between them. Her eyes widens in alarm. She can see the string move. Does... he feel that, too?

The boy slightly surprised, looks down again. His heart beats a little faster. He does not expect for the girl to stay and ask for his name. No one has ever, ever, done that.

He hesitates, "N-Newton." Hair partially covers his eyes.

"Newton...?" She huffs impatiently.

"Newton. Scamander." Then, like a frightened kitten, he fusses back to the Kneazle, losing all his presence of mind- as if to say, I have done the end of my deal. Now leave!

Newton Scamander. There's a searing pain solidifying within her. Then, like in a cooled state, it's gone- forming something else entirely.

Newt Scamander. Vee, no, Harriet, gazes up again and looks- like really looks, and she remembers creatures and fresh parchment and Newt Scamander on the covers of hundreds of Hogwarts textbooks and his face on Chocolate cards and- well, she almost bursts out laughing.

"I'm Genevieve!" She cups her hands to inform him, giving it to him all wide and clear. To anyone else, it would look like he didn't hear it. But, Vee knows he has heard her, has taken her name with him and has tucked it in a written remembrance in his brain about this day. She sees the pause in his movement when she says it anyway- arms wavering, gaze unmoving for a second. He looks confunded for a second.

"Well," she quips, "See you."

With one last look, she twists her body, holds both of her hands behind her, and walks back home.

 _It's okay to leave_ , she thinks, as she curls a small hand near her heart (a figurative place where she has never felt it bump, bump, bump so fast in decades), and feels the endless tugging of a string as she goes farther and farther and farther away from the opposite direction of Newton Scamander. _I'll see him again_.

It's a circle. She'll come back to him, a point in her circle.

 

 

 

 


	2. One

_In circles, everywhere_  
One.

* * *

 

Time passed, and Genevieve grew.

For Harry, growing up had always been the hardest part. As new phrases and songs and sceneries engulfed her memory like the concrete rings of an old but living tree, the past memories she had taken with her from other lives slowly disappeared for the sake of the harsh contours of Genevieve Greengrass' privileged individuality.

And by the time she was ten, there were more often times than not that she would receive the startling realization that she had sunk in this life so deeply that it perpetually frightened her.

Though, the feeling would disparate in a flick of a switch, and she would not remember that it had been there at all.

She became so in tuned with Genevieve Greengrass that it had been second nature for Harriet Potter to fill the halls of Hogwarts with selfish girl supremacy, rebellious behavior, and risqué escapades- wrapped tightly with charming, dainty smiles and the most fashionable outfits known to the muggle world of 1900's.

There was a grey area- a region in between that gave her time to adjust in her new life each time she was reborn- that went from the range of one to seven years in one life. Anytime after the life she held turned seven-years-old, Death would make her old memories fade into the background of the new expanse that was her new life, as if it was making room for new memories to fit into her brain.

Those decrepit and grey-haired memories would echo like a silly dream. Most of the time, when it would happen in recurrence, she, in a certain life, would pass it off as a silly dream instead of connecting it as being something real- a thing what she had actually felt. It helped her settle into life more comfortably as she aged each time, so often being sucked into a life that she always forgot that she had been given life too many times to count.

The thing was, she would forget that she had been someone else, had been somewhere else, looked like something else in another life.

And she would be a perfectly normal person, living a perfectly normal life. Would grow into deep nature and the cells within the skin. Wouldn't be struck to the bone by differing, alternating memories from different lives.

Would only acquire those million memories again by the time she'd be on the brink of death and getting readied for another adventure.

Maybe Death had given this ability to her, as a convenience. For the sake of her never getting bored.

How thoughtful.

It was okay, though, to not remember the lives she had once lived- in this way, things went more better, more fresh. In this way, being reborn meant actually being born anew- not moving on and yet still dwelling.

Harriet Potter had no taste for repetition. She loved the crash of excitement that wove and buzzed along the pulse of her racing heart. So, yes, it was alright to forget each time.

She was, after all, a big fanatic of spontaneity.

-  
-  
-  
-  
-  
-

  
Harriet Potter- no, Genevieve Greengrass turned seven on a Monday morning in Grantim Oakville. It was dreary, cold, and wet outside the silent estate.

She woke up to a specially-laid out English breakfast with pink ribbons and pink flowers and pink gifts- all crafted by the house elves that listened to her words like muggle religion.

Her father was not there. He was somewhere far away from England, still mourning the death of his wife many months ago. That happened on a monday, too.

Genevieve opened her presents. She took a knife and butchered up the pink paper, threw it all around the room like confetti. She took the pink robes, sliced the thin and expensive fabric into tiny bits of pieces, shouted bloody murder and punctured The Greengrass family painting. In the end, she was all tired and sweaty and unnecessarily ugly.

She felt her throat choke up at the last thought, and immediately ran in her room to do her hair- to be prettier. Because prettier girls always got the attention.

-

Her father came home late. He screamed at her face. She felt the agonizing sound waves that slapped her face, though she remained stone cold. This was the most exciting moment she had felt in years.

When he left, she felt dull.

In that moment, she decided this was who she was going to be.

Because pretty girls always got the attention.

-

(A faint tug that pulled her heart a bit by ten o'clock felt familiar and homely- though, at the same time, felt distant and forgotten. Harry Potter stayed still in her bed. Genevieve Greengrass waved it away in distaste.

And so, the string that spilled from her heart became forgotten. And the time when Harriet met a boy in a park went forgotten, too.

  
Circles, circles. _Utterly_ boring.)

  
-  
-

  
1.

"...and don't forget to write, it would be silly to waste such expensive stationary. Use the scarlet quill the Bones' gave you for Christmas, I tried it out and it's absolutely spectacular on goatskin..."

Before she could even trudge through the gaggles of human skin and a mixture of perfume, cologne, and earthly sweat, her aunt had already started her sendoff speech, which composed of odd reminders and poorly connected sentences formed into unnecessary chatter.

Old, young, girl and boy- all buzzed around Platform Nine and Three-Quarters like exhilarated bees. They glided, bumped, and ran in different waves, most often with heavy trunks and metal animal mesh-habitats.

A few school mates from her year stuck out from the crowd like sore thumbs. Though, that was to be expected. Hufflepuff Amy Bones wrapped her arms around an elderly couple near the first train entrance. It was easy to catch the short reddish-brown hair that was never allowed to be grown out to reach the small of her back. Then, take for example, Caroline Matthews- one of Gryffindor's resident muggleborns'- was hidden beneath at least two carts of passing trunks, but she was easy to spot since Genevieve could identify her special golden-specked eyes anywhere.

It was the same every year, Vee thought as her sharp eyes crossed over to a young woman and her first year son, analyzing their interactions. Same place, same sight.

Wait, no. Vee bit her lip while she slipped back a loose lock over her ear. Same place, different sight, a voice echoed. A soft hum of interest thrummed against her sun-kissed skin.

This was the first year Aunt Analiese had accompanied her to the Hogwarts Express. Aunt Analiese was a mindless thing. Genevieve Greengrass wanted to snap her like a twig for being so boring.

"...is that assumed, darling? Your father will worry very much, so you have to- Vee. Vee? Genevieve. Are you listening to me?"

Her aunt actually had a glowered look on her face before giving a passing familiar face a warm smile. Fake.

Though, it evaporated immediately to focus on the young girl. "Have you heard what I've just said?"

"Yes, yes, you mad woman," Vee growled, adjusting her soft brown curls that cascaded down her chest, when a man carrying a first year's owl cage came bumping into her thin shoulder, "I'll write."

The sound of the Hogwarts Express' special train noise that chugged extra loud within the magical vehicle allowed Vee's ears a few heartbeats of noise.

Aunt Analiese gave a small sigh. It crinkled the sides of her eyes like laugh lines, and that's when Vee received a sudden hug from her. "Be safe, alright, dear? No more sneaking off at night or any sort of dumb mischief you and your friends might cook up this year. No more letters from the house head telling me about your midnight broom closet escapes with the opposite sex, okay?"

Vee rolled her eyes. "It was one time." She would do it again.

"Well, the other times you weren't caught, then." She would still do it again.

The younger girl blinked at her indifferently before tapping her small feet in the direction of an opened train door, "Look, if you'll just reprimand me on what I choose to do over curfew hours then I rather I'll just get the same thing from Slughorn. It will sound much more proficient since it's in a head of house office and all that, trust me."

Aunt Analiese gave her a long, measured stare. "I'm sure you know that experience much too well, don't you, Genevieve?"

It did not take long before a small, smug look erupted from Vee's face. "You know me too well, aunt dearest."

Her Aunt huffed, looked around, before replying, "This is your fifth year in Hogwarts, young lady. Have some respect for yourself."

"I do have respect," the young, beautiful girl pouted before catching a glimpse of herself on the reflection of a dirty window. "People practically throw it at me in school."

She eyed her murky self warily, though.

"May I remind you that you are a Greengrass and this behavior is not regarded appreciatively? It's audacity! Practically self-mutilation! " Her eyes widened before ending her voice in a whisper, "Your mother, Genevieve. What will she say?"

And that, honestly, abruptly finished the conversation like a sharp cut of a knife. Because no one, literally no one, had ever brought up the courage to talk about her mother to her. Until now.

She stomped on the Hogwarts Express before her Aunt could stop her.

-

(Maybe she left because she did not feel just Mrs. Greengrass' death that came along the haunting matriarchal term. When she spoke of mother, she thought of two memories.

First, she thought of smooth wizarding rhymes, soft sheets, and lovely eyes that told her she loved her.

Second, it was emerald eyes, green light, and the last words that repeated itself over and over again: "Harriet, I love you very, very much."

It doesn't matter though. The second thought vanished before she even made sense of it.)

-  
-  
-  
-  
-

On the first night of her fifth year at Hogwarts, she dreamt of green and red hair and glassy eyes and flying cars and strings that spilled from her heart that connected to something else far away. She woke up breathless, scared, and entirely vulnerable.

She couldn't make sense of it, even when she applied the faint muggle creams for concealment under her eyelids and and swiped the cinnamon scented muggle lipgloss on herself like a shield.

She took a quill from her trunk and spilled nonsensical things on the parchment, until it was so long that it looked like a murder scene. Before breakfast, she went up the Owlery and mailed it to her father, heart desperately hoping for a reply that would never come

(When a constant stream of Slytherin students began complimenting her of how good she looked on her first day, she smiled, took all their appreciation like a fawn in a muggle zoo. She was being appreciated at the moment, that feeling was exhilarating.

But for the first time since she was seven, she literally begged herself from within not to crack under pressure.)

-

"Double potions with Hufflepuffs. How... tedious."

"They shouldn't do that to the badgers, it's dangerous for 'em."

Genevieve stayed in silence, sipping her pumpkin juice instead. The swirls that erupted from the orange-colored sheen felt more compelling to watch rather than conversing with small brained Slytherin students- which, by the way, followed her like flies to a gas lamp.

The three of her roommates who had grown up with her in the sizzling heat of pureblood supremacy- Driana Myers, Victoria Purnell, and Laurel Parkinson- turned to her direction with amused smirks on their carefully made-up faces. "Don't you think so, Genevieve? How adorable it is to see the little cute buggers that make up the most boring part of the Hogwarts population quiver under our feet like pygmy puffs?" Parkinson droned while she leered at pretty much everyone. A fourth-year Slytherin seated beside her moved inch by inch on the bench away from her.

"Talk more and everyone will think I'm the next dark lord," Vee drawled, coyly twisting a dark lock from her ringlets with charming schoolgirl flair. She gave a wide, sugar-infested smile to a Professor Slughorn, who was handing out timetables to the first years. The professor beamed jovially at one of his favorite, most intellectually promising student of the year

"So, Greengrass, what magnificent gift do you want to bestow the Gryffindors today?" Driana interject, bored, daintily cutting a slice of her toast.

She raised a brow and sounded a small laugh, "You make my planned accidents sound like it's a pleasant thing for them."

"How paradoxical of you to call your petty pranks that, Genevieve." Driana hummed. "I love it, it sounds so you."

"Thank you, I know."

"Well, it is a gift for me," Laurel placed a stretch hand on her chest, feigning distress, "especially if it's seeing Mary Hallow's face scrounge up like a big prune." Driana cackled as if it was the funniest thing in the Great Hall.

A quarter of the green-tied second years narrowed their eyes, though quickly looked away once they caught a glimpse of the green-eyed Genevieve Greengrass.

Victoria Purnell placed a used fork on the side of her plate, then spoke with a pondering look on her face like she always did. "But you can, you know, like, rule the world. I mean, if you tried." It was off-topic, but Vee assumed it was stemmed from the Dark Lord idea.

"I already rule Hogwarts," she waved her hand, eyes rolling. "Power is an arse, honestly." Her thin fingers toyed with a silver knife slowly. Her voice went sour, "I've tasted it. I've felt it dripping down the depths of my stomach. Doing it again after graduation?" Bewitching eyes rose and four eyes met it back with surprised anticipation.

"Boring."

-

(Genevieve was scared of boredom. She thrived on showing up like the sun, basking in everyone's attention on her. She demanded it. They gave it to her.

But soon, at Hogwarts, it became like a circle- it went on and on and on. No point of stopping.

She realized power was dumb, and her brain slowly mushed up from their endless worshipping. How odd it was to feel so powerless on the top.

She wrote a letter again to her father about it. He didn't reply.

She wore bright red lipstick the next day to feel better about it.)

-

-

The seventh year student handled her more complexly than any fifth year student could do. His rough palms felt heavy on her skin, not much fun at all, and for once, she did not feel any ounce of thrill.

"Please- please, stop." She called out, breathless when hands squeezed her wrists tighter. Kissing became gruff, and she stopped returning it. It felt painful, and not fun at all.

"Come on, Greengrass," the boy, with ink-black hair and seeker-practiced hands that palmed the rest of her struggling body, cooed into faux pity. "Too much for you to handle? Thought you were bored."

"It's-" She pulled, and pulled, and pulled. "-not ffun at all. Get- get your bloody hands off me!"

"It'll be fun when we do it. I promise you that, it'll be just like playing a game. Won't you like that a lot? A game?"

She refused to let salty liquid fall from her eyes.

The Hogwarts quidditch field felt like an enemy. The moon looked over her, seeming to find the situation funny. The horrid boy and the girl with tarnished soul danced an ugly dance, his hands findings hers in stupid repetition. She was utterly scared for the first time in her life, and she had realized that this was what most people felt when they were really, really scared.

When the boy found it boring, he left her there. Genevieve Greengrass gazed at his back after he went back up the castle, and giggled ironically to herself that this was what it might have felt like to be her own ex-victim from her own boredom games. After she had tossed each boy to the ground after she received what she wanted, she would waltz away in the arms of another.

Her arm shot up for her dirtied cloak. She wore it in slow movements. Then, she dropped back down to the ground again.

When he was gone- silhouette off, body tucked safely away under the intimidating castle she called home, she cried.

-

The light she woke up to was warm blue eyes. They were pits of midnight stars embellished on a Saturday night back in Grantim Oakville.

What she meant was, the first thing she saw was home.

It was still dark out. These eyes were the brightest.

"Please- A-are you alright-" A male voice leapt out in the dark. Her eyes widen in trauma at the sudden appearance of words formed from the back of her head, 'Won't you like that a lot? A game?', carried so innocently into the night by the voice of the same gender, and that instilled a sort of trauma she didn't know she had.

Until now.

Eyes wide. Lips open. Ghostly hands wrapped tight around her cheeks and wrists and thighs. Aching. Bruises. She gasped and felt so, so weak when she tried to grasp away from this boy's careful touch on her hand.

Heart beat raised to like a horse on a race. "Leave," she angrily hissed, eyes staring down at the ground, refusing to gaze into the bright night. She refused anyone to see her like this- at her ugliest.

Pretty girls always got the attention. Not ugly ones- like her, like at this moment.

A pause. No voice. No male voice.

But, it returned. She flinched, which she did not know the great Genevieve Greengrass could actually do.

"It's alright-" the boy hesitated, but spoke softly- not like honey, not like the seventh year seeker who touched. This felt short and uneasy and hardly smooth like a boy who wanted to woe her into the depths of marriage, "I'm not going to do anything- I promise-" he told her gently- shortly- full of worry and promise, "I promise-"

"I heard that the first time," Genevieve growled, "I don't need another ear of it." She stayed still. Perfectly still. The boy followed. She could tell. Her eyes were on his shoes. He did not move at all.

Seemingly after a moment of heavy silence, the boy with bright eyes quietly ruptured it. "Are you alright now?.." He breathed.

She did not respond, but slowly peeled her eyes off the muddy grounds and latched it on the boy.

Light-brown hair, with a tinge of red. A tug came from her heart.

The evil moon made him look like the opposition of evil, with his helping of freckles and absolute warmth radiating off his individual. His hand was outstretched- out, tender, waiting for a response... just like a young boy on the cusp of coaxing out a scared animal.

He looked frighteningly familiar.

"Yes," she bit her lip, embarrassed. First time for everything. Her skin- her heart. Racing. Racing? To some sort of degree. What. What merlin was this feeling? Genevieve sat up, pulled herself up. She groaned silently at her ugly dressage, and she willed herself not to cry.

_Pretty girls._  
_Pretty girls._  
_Pretty girls._

Some tears spilled though. It was like forcing a hand over an overflowing cup. Some slipped through, others stayed contained.

"No- no," the boy came closer, but not close to touch. "Don't cry." He blinked at her, unsure. Did not know what to do with a crying girl.

There was a beat before she said anything.

"Boring."

She inched towards him. "I hate boring. I did it because it was the edge of the cliff. I did it because I thought it was an adventure. Guess what? It's not, it's not, it's not." She gripped grass as her own ironic repetition fed into her brain process.

She thought he would get up and leave her be- leave the once-charming, once-coveted Greengrass. Or question her on who would it be, what was she babbling on about- the words that left her tongue that needed explaining, but what was too tiring to explain.

Another beat.

"I- I don't like b-boring, too." He admitted, glancing at her under long lashes.

-

"Newton. S-scamander." Nervous. Blue eyes wandering when things calmed.

"Genevieve." A pause. "I knew your brother." His long fingers wrapped together in a jumble.

"Ah. Um. Well, I believe everyone does-" Yellow and black scarf, hugging his neck.

"Not everyone." Tall, horrid posture. "Not everyone knows just Theseus Scamander."

"Why?"

He's boyish and handsome. Although hidden and tamed. Wouldn't be so admired by many at first sight. She could see the contours of his skin, though- at this darkness, this passageway.

"Because now I know a Newt Scamander, who is Theseus' brother, who, like me, does not like boredom much at all."

No response echoed after her. But it was okay, she could detect the small sprout of wonder that glinted from his eyes.

They reached a hidden passageway in which Genevieve knew existed by instinct, where a fork split into two directions. "The left will take you close to the Hufflepuff common room. I'll see you around," all panic and the ugly interior that brought them together the hour prior were stowed away tightly beneath her skin.

She was ready to be perfect, again.

"Newt."

"A-alright."

She left him first, not giving a glance back, wondering if he'd be watching her leave like she had watched the seventh year disappear.

The thought left her oddly fascinated.

No. Not boring at all.

-

(When Genevieve turned nine, she blowed up her closet with silk and fur and everything heavily embroidered with goblin jewelries. Anything so damn crazy, damn expensive, which she knew would get anyone to notice her,

She felt a pitch black hole in her heart, however, when her father simply patted her head the morning she place on her best jewels and wore her hair in soft, cascading ringlets that fell like a a dreamy waterfall.

Aunt Analiese took her out for afternoon tea to be shown off to other pureblood socialites- to show off how grandiose she was, how soft and cunning at the same time. The perfect Slytherin. She welcomed the adoring rays that hit her every time she walked in the room, but she hungrily wanted for more.

When she reached eleven, she took a fancy to manipulation. She invested her time in muggle makeup. She learned to be boisterously beautiful and wild and extremely untouchable. She learned to be kind in one moment and be harsh at the next. Her emotions ran at every high extreme. She could fit into any mold anyone wanted her to be. She was adored, fancied, coveted. Used tons and tons of times. Gained power, ruled the castle walls of Hogwarts like a queen within it. She pranked a lot. And she used her lips a lot. She'd kissed boys so many and so quickly in a month that it had bored her to death, so she ushered a vow to herself to stop and find something else.

Everything. Bloody everything was a damn circle. It repeated itself again and again, and Genevieve felt terrified of ending life bored- cut bluntly off the circle.

She knew no genuine kindness. It was nonexistent. Have not ever felt being coddled with absolute adoration by any boy who decided to kiss her, or a single friend that took their time to help with no planned beneficial return from her. Everything in her life was a give and take.

It was the Slytherin way to go.)

 

-  
-  
-

-

-

- 

 

 

By six am, she carried herself up from bed and tossed away the invisible grime and self-loathing that bled on her skin that night. She brought her hands to comb out the tresses that beautified her face like a victorian doll. She fixed her robes and tossed up a sweet smile.

And then, she walked to the Great Hall with a perfectly-made exterior.

-

It was another day for Genevieve Greengrass- beautiful ringlets, soft lips, charming smile, graceful walk, brains that sprang to life with intellect.

 

No one noticed a thing.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Super super sorry for the long update! I recently just finished the half-term and was waiting for the right time to write this mess of a fic.
> 
> Okay, so, let's see where this story is heading. As depicted of the prologue, we can see Harriet still embedded in the parts of the Genevieve Greengrass. (Basically, she's still sane.)
> 
> And now, at chapter two, which you lot have recently just read, depicts her now as a broken girl who just wants to be loved. :( the traces of Harry still living her is faint, close to being vanished, but you know, she's still there, of course. Genevieve Greengrass is such a poor, destroyed soul with daddy issues.
> 
> Anyway, give me a comment or two on what you think of the story. I really appreciate that, guys. :) thank you! Kudos! 
> 
> Tumblr: radrabbitx.tumblr.com


	3. Two

* * *

in circles, somewhere else.

_two_

* * *

 

Newt Scamander didn't know what to think, or say, or feel, when he walked back to the castle and caught sight of a muddled figure resting on the school quidditch field.

It was a frivolous sight, that it could have been something dangerous- but he took the chance (he liked taking risks), anyway, when he took a few steps in and realized it was a girl. A dirty, messed-up girl. It wasn't any sort of animal that he could appease or bring back to the Forbidden Forrest.

When he flicked on lumos and investigated the sight, his eyes could encounter the distinct brown ringlets messily sprawled, the silver and green scarf next to her head, and the small, dainty hands shaking with tremor. It was the notorious Genevieve Greengrass.

His conscience whispered for him to leave the sight, to hightail back to the castle, where it was warm and homely- where he didn't have any people to tend to. People never really minded Newt Scamander- he was often found strange and hard to talk to. He himself knew that.

That's why he took himself outside social situations and usually tucked by his lonesome within an isolated shack near the Forbidden Forest. It was provided in secret by Professor Dumbledore when he was found proficient in the area of magical creatures. It had become a habit for him to stay up past curfew, which showed up dark and heavy under his eyes- but it was fine, no one bothered to question him about it. Nobody really cared.

Hufflepuffs were known for its house solidarity. They always did everything and paid great loyalty to each other, so maybe that's where he didn't fit in. He struggled in striking up friendships. Humans were odd; they expected you to act in a certain way in order for them to respond in a certain way so they could be approved by general society.

Newt couldn't understand it at first try, so he continued living life in the most easiest way possible- with his beautiful creatures. Humans were fussy, animals were easy.

So when Newt was faced with a conflict that considered a girl who practically thrived in the general wave of everything he avoided fearfully of, he was ready to bolt and never show trace that he was even there. His hand was already slipping his wand back in his arm sleeve, and his feet were pointing in the general direction back to the castle; but, it only took Genevieve Greengrass's eyes to open to stop him.

His throat dried up when her eyes stared at him in blatant fear- as if he could hurt her. She stumbled a bit, her hands shaking, and her body was closing within.

He couldn't help but carefully prod out his arm- in the exact same way he would do with a threatened animal.

At that moment, she seemed so much like a frightened creature.

He was bewitched, in a sad way.

A low hum buzzed within him, and he already knew by that minute that he wasn't going anywhere.

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(Genevieve willed herself to forget. Especially when she and her ringlets and he with his ink-black hair stood three inches apart as they passed each other in the Great Hall.)

-

The aftermath of that incident was sort of a catatonic period of time to the young boy. He got back to his bed through the hidden hole behind a painting. The painting took its heavy time in order to scold him from waking her up. He apologized profusely before it huffed and moved into its third floor residence, muttering about 'inconsiderate teenagers' in her wake.

He went to bed thinking about brown ringlets and how soft it must be to touch them.

-

The next time he saw her was the morning after.

He felt a sharp tug from chest when he realized she looked desperately perfect- like a pale, symmetrical painting that was forbidden to be felt. So different from the scene he saw the night before- where she looked terribly afraid and disinclined and real.

She, not even once, looked over to the Hufflepuff table.

  
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"You know, you're being freakily unusual these days, Vee."

"Yeah, it's like you hardly ever chat with us anymore."

"Gen, are you ill? Do you need to visit the Madame?"

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"It's been five days, Greengrass. Have you caught the flu that's going around the Ravenclaw room? No? Well, it seems like you've did."

"You better get a Pepper-up, I don't want to catch it."

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On occasion, he would do most of his work alone.

Though in Potions, a familiar face would sit next to him, and they both would work harmoniously without interruption. They never talked, never uttered a single sentence or word or letter.

He liked it that way. She seemed to like it that way too.

It only took a month before the inevitable would happen, however.

"Can you pass the extra knife, please." Her voice was monotonous and solid- somewhat like his gender but higher, tone more flowing- like a waterfall. It was harshly different from what he had heard many nights ago- a warm, soft voice that seemed to move tenderly like water.

His eyes blinked twice when he realized he had been just thinking about Genevieve Greengrass.

He gripped the jagged knife before passing it carefully to Leta Lestrange, an unceremonious face he incessantly encountered in the Hufflepuff common room. Like him, she was an outsider that walked the Hogwarts halls. But in turn, she was farther in difference from him than the way people thought. While he was mostly alone from nonexistent human friends, he had wonderful companions that took his time on the edge of the Forbidden forest. He wasn't minded in school as he was not like his brother, Theseus, who was impudent and brave; he, on the other hand, had a face that faded in the background.

He had always thought it would be harder for Leta, the second outsider. She had two older brothers who paraded the halls with their dark-natured personalities that shook the ground each time they walked. She didn't have friends at all, more loved by the books she took time reading in her palms. He was careful with interactions between her. She reminded him of a creature that didn't want to be fussed and prodded too much- as if he had any motive to do that.

"Here-" he softly said, ushered the thing into her surprisingly warm hand. He didn't know- his eyes carefully focused on his simmering pot -but she was gazing at him much curiously now. His eyes shot back down to the work he was doing.

Leta took it as the end to their minuscule interaction and went back to hers.

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(Genevieve dreamed of a man with wiry glasses and warm eyes that stared lovingly at her from behind it. He had ruffled hair and a smile that warmed her up like home.

"Harry, be safe alright?."

Green light illuminated.)

Her fingers trembled when she wrote. She noticed it a second when she picked up her favorite scarlet quill and tried starting on the eleven inch report that was due on Friday for Astronomy.

The cute cursive letters she used before had now looked considerably grainy on parchment. The Slytherin girl stared at it a few minutes before tearing the parchment up into severed pieces.

"Bloody useless- uncontrollable, undesirable-" she gripped her cheeks in hardly Greengrass manner. The stress was piling on her like weights. And she wasn't strong enough to hold it all.

Stone-faced, miserable, and angry- all at the same time, she grabbed her wand from her bedside table and exited her room as quietly as possible. Her stomach was rumbling, since she had made a sad decision in not going to dinner that night. Great, she felt the worst.

Therefore, her feet decided to head towards the kitchens. As soon as she tickled the pear on the painting, a loud movement within the lower chambers made her jump in fright as she settled in near the tables.

"Sorry- I didn't mean to scare you."

And that, warmed her cheeks. It was the boy.

Turning, she gripped the wand behind her back. "Newt Scamander," she leveled her voice as normally as possible. She hoped he couldn't hear the nervous edge that radiated from her throat.

The Hufflepuff boy in subject was sitting near the end of one table. Two house elves were near him, looking as if he was talking to them prior to her abrupt visitation.

"Genevieve," he tested out. Her name sounded different with his voice- a good different. She could literally hear the gears that shifted in his head. He looked so clear, so easy to figure out- she realized just now with her clear head and right minded perspective. No moon gazed over him, just the warm lamps that flooded the room. He looked easier, softer, to see.

Shy, albeit bright, eyes wandered to her face.

"So you know this place too, huh?" She brought out, trying to keep cool. It was hard, she couldn't understand. She never felt this before.

"Oh- yes." He admitted, a small skittish yet amiable look on his face- eyes widened and all that, looking warm and safe and- she was transfixed. "It's a good place. Been visiting a lot. Since second year."

"Um, I just wanted to, uh. Oh merlin, I don't know where to start," she placed a hand over the back of her throat. "Um, since you're here, I just want to say thank you for being there when I was busy being demented and shit. I was being shitty that night so I did shitty stuff and- and- I feel more and more shitty now that I realized you're ears are turning pink and- oh heavens! Are you alright?"

Newt looked harder at the floor, "No- no, it's just that. Not used to... to women speaking that way." He ended it, looking pink.

That brought small smile to herself, losing all the hectic nerves from her thoughts, "Sorry, it's a habit. I guess I'm different than most girls, aren't I?"

The Hufflepuff boy gave a nod, pushing a fruit basket down the table before standing. "Yes. I believe so- that you're different... d-different than most girls."

She took a step closer, like a trying out the waters. "Hopefully it isn't a bad different."

A pregnant pause.

There was an odd look that twisted his boyish features before he rumbled from his throat, "Don't really know. It's both. I think. Bad and good. I don't really know. Sorry." His fingers fumbled the black and yellow scarf tied around his neck. His thin and lithe body looked warm and inviting, too far from the physique she found in most boys she kissed. He was different to her, too- she realized.

A soft, broken smile- that was what she gave him, "I don't really know, too."

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They next time they locked eyes again- blue to green, green to glue -was three days later.

She walked the halls with her Slytherin girlfriends, all glamorous and posh and so far up from everyone.

It was the all-time high that distracted her from anything that could make her fall back down to the everyday misery she was stuck with.

From the hair to the make-up and to her tippy toes, she was situated in the center and everyone stared enviously as they walked passed in symmetrical form.

Everything was smooth as the ocean- it was only when a familiar boy with a Hufflepuff scar and an awkward, adventurous movement in his feet happened to appear from the other end of the corridor.

He looked frighteningly bright, so full of soft, mesmerizing energy that made her captivated.

She lost her footing for a few moments. His kind gaze looked up then abruptly back down to his feet as they passed by.  
  
The two of them. Worlds away.

There was strong lurch in her stomach and she had to slow down their walk.

  
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It took her a long time to be as normal as possible again.

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(These days, she forgot there was such a thing as boredom. She's been too busy looking for blue eyes in specially-lit hallways.)

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"Leta Lestrange."

Genevieve wrinkled her recently-powdered nose. "Lestrange who?"

Her hand stopped from moving the expensive quill she got from her Aunt. Amongst the heavy noise that engulfed them in study hour, Laurel Parkinson's voice seemed targeted under a microphone to her ear.

But it's not like it was anything new. These days, everything sounded harsher, seen brighter. She couldn't help but feel more tender, less brash than she was before. Felt more vulnerable.

She hated it.

"Lestrange, the girl who was sorted into Hufflepuff two years back." Parkinson quipped, snapping out her muggle lipgloss in the process. Her roommate took out her wand to transfigure a nearby quill into a small mirror, and she eyed the far-away Professor Sodrom warily before pressing it in a distance against her face.

Vee remembered a short, stone-faced first year who took the stool and the hat placidly before looking utterly shocked and dismayed at being sorted into Hufflepuff. She clearly recollected the rest of the hall replying the same way, especially Leta's brothers- Craig and Alastor- being negatively red about the whole thing. She couldn't recall if this was true or not, but she was pretty sure that there was also a faint memory of a howler that came for the girl the next morning; though, as she wasn't too fond of Hufflepuffs and their futile roles in her Slytherin school life, she didn't really pick up much detail on them over the years.

"Don't really know what she looks like. I don't really care."

"She was being inconsiderately nettlesome today, thus Craig took care of her. Merlin, she's such a freak- I can't believe she's related to the guy I'm snogging with. Look, there she is now."

Both of the girls brought their heads up to eyeball the girl from a distance. Caramel skin, long black locks, a dreadfully bored look on her face. She stood under the threshold of the Hogwarts Library. It was a normal sight, she was about to retreat back in her hardly-started homework for Potions.  
  
It felt like marbles were dropped down her stomach.

The awkward and gentle boy so rough in her memory stood beside Leta Lestrange, looking lost and found and warmth personified all at the same time. He was nervously shifting his scarf, an action she was finding too adorable to digest. She dropped her favorite scarlet quill, aghast at her own thoughts.

"T-that's Leta?" Genevieve tried to recover, but failed. Laurel, at least, was too busy in reapplying her gloss.

"Yes," Parkinson rolled her eyes. "Merlin, Gen, I just wished you could get back to your old self and do something shittily marvelous to the Hufflepuffs so they can cry their eyes out." She slammed the lipgloss on the tables. "These days, sometimes I think you've turned into another person. Like, you've changed."

They were walking towards them now. Leta was pulling his arm, and he was letting her lead him. He sort of reminded her of a fawn.

When they passed by their secluded table, the one that sat center in the grand room, their eyes met once again. But this time, something was different. His lips rose a bit for a comforting smile- one that was directed towards her.

It was like being gushed by hot water in the middle of a blazing blizzard. Her insides turned to mush, she could feel heat rushing to her cheeks. Her eyes immediately whipped back to her blank parchment.

She coyly twisted a ringlet from her hair in true Greengrass fashion, trying not to let it get to her. She bet he didn't even know that he was doing it. He seemed so shy and secluded- no, he'd be too gentle to purposely cause a reaction like this from her. 

Gripping her quill harder, she pushed it down her parchment. She could feel a lump forming in the back of her throat.

 

 

No, not boring at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who gave kudos! You rock guys! This chapter is the starting point of Genevieve and Newt's slowly blossoming friendship (lol, or maybe relationship). Hope y'all enjoying so far!
> 
> Comments are highly appreciated. Tell me what you think! I love hearing your thoughts. :)


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